For Old Time's Sake
by Geezworld234
Summary: It's been over a year since the end of the second world war and Gary Sparrow still appears to be secretive with his wife. Is he just struggling to return to a normal life after doing his bit in the war or is there more to it? Phoebe Sparrow sets out to try to find out but will her meeting with a familiar face and her revelations mean her husband's secret will finally be discovered?


_**Disclaimer: As much as I wish I did, I do not own Goodnight Sweetheart or it's characters. I wrote this instead of doing something worthwhile so apologies if this is rubbish but I thought it would be a fun idea to explore. Enjoy and feel free to review if you wish! x**_

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><p>She told herself that she must be going mad. All these years of secrets and hidden loneliness were to blame. Standing on the stage, she smiled at the audience and then turned to offer the same warm gesture to the man sat at the piano, her husband, Gary.<p>

It was 1946 and the novelty of winning the war had worn off, rationing was still very much on the menu and those little treats Gary brought back for her from the American embassy had stopped once the war was declared officially over.

The audience applauded as she finished her song, it really touched her how much they always seemed to enjoy her singing, especially the songs her husband wrote for her and 'I Will Always Love You' was no exception.

"You were marvellous, as always Phoebe" Gary said proudly as he handed her a cocktail.

"Thank you, you played the piano even more beautifully that usual" she said sitting down in the now empty Blue Door Club.

"What's say we leave the tidying up of this place until tomorrow and go home?" Gary said solemnly.

"What happened to 'seen as Reg and Margie have agreed to have Michael for the night we make the most of it and book a swanky hotel'?"

"I just don't feel like it, Phoebe." Gary snapped a little too harshly.

"You know if you really don't like my company you only have to say" she shouted back.

"You know that isn't true" he said getting up and moving closer to her as a form of an apology for his behaviour.

"Really, well from where I am sitting it is perfectly clear, this marriage was alright for you while you were off doing your secret work for the war effort, coming and going as you pleased but now you have to stick it out full time it's become is too much for you!"

"Phoebe" he pleaded as his wife jumped out of her seat and turned away. "That isn't true, you know how much I love you and little Michael it's just today it's-"

"It's what?" she asked turning to face him, her beautiful brown eyes almost hidden by the puddle of tears they were desperately trying to conceal.

Gary didn't reply for a few seconds, he didn't know what to tell her, he couldn't possibly tell her the truth. "I am just finding it hard to adjust back to normality that's all."

"Don't give me that Gary Sparrow, it has been over a year since the war finished you've found work and with your generous salary and the money this place is bringing in we are doing a lot better than some of the people we know. I wasn't the one that didn't want to move to America-"

"I know and I'm sorry, I just feel guilty that's all" he interrupted.

"What exactly are you sorry for? Come on then, let's hear it." Mrs Sparrow replied sharply.

Gary sighed, he had promised himself there would be no more lying, but that of course would be impossible considering who he was and what he knew. "You know how Yvonne Goolagong my controller at MI5 was captured and killed on VE Day?" He finally began.

Phoebe nodded, but of course Gary being Gary hadn't told her until a few weeks after all the VE celebrations.

"Well it would have been her birthday today and I was just thinking about her and her family. There is a memorial service near where HQ used to be but I can't go, I am trying to put all that stuff behind me. Like I promised you, that side of Gary Sparrow doesn't exist anymore." He said with a trace of regret in his voice.

"Oh Gary, I'm sorry" she said holding him tight in an embrace, the guilt of how she had spoke to him suddenly sobered her. "You don't hold it against me for not letting you continue with your secret work do ya?"

"Of course not, sorry it has been a busy week and my head's all over the place, let's go out for dinner and then check into a hotel as planned."

"No Gary, let's just go home" she said sensing that her husband wouldn't be very good company tonight.

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><p>Their Mayfair flat was silent, partly because their son Michael wasn't there but mainly due to the fact neither of them were all that talkative. Gary sat in the armchair in silence, deep in thought, about Yvonne and how she would be celebrating her birthday in the new millennium.<p>

This led Phoebe to over think her husband's almost shifty, secretive attitude during the day. She wasn't totally convinced that his reason was accurate and the more she thought about it, the more she realised that all the secrecy stayed with Gary even after the war ended.

Half an hour later Gary put down the Radio Times and jumped out of his chair "I'm going for a walk" he announced.

"But it's late" Phoebe said looking over at the clock which sat on the grand piano.

"I know" he said walking behind the sofa on which his wife was sitting. "I won't be long, I promise" he added kissing her on the top of her head.

"That's what you said the last time you came home late" she said to herself as he shut the front door behind him.

After stewing for a couple of minutes, Phoebe decided that she knew exactly where he would be if he had been telling her the truth today.

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><p>The taxi dropped her off not far from Duckett's Passage; the place where Gary once claimed was his secret headquarters during the war. The passage was deserted; she reached the dead end and put her hand on the cold brick wall. It felt damp and slimy, just what you would expect a brick in an alley way to feel like.<p>

Phoebe sighed as she recalled the last time she was here, VE night, she and little Michael came here after Gary had disappeared from the celebrations up west to find him. Unlike the rest of London that night, he was suffering from anticlimax and over a year later it was still affecting him, even if he wouldn't admit it.

As she decided she had jumped to the wrong conclusion about Gary, she brushed her hand over the wall one last time and was shocked at what followed.

Her hand appeared to disappear right through the wall. She shook her head in disbelief and quickly jerked it back. "It must be the stress of today, I must be seeing things" she muttered.

Unfortunately, curiosity got the better of her and she placed her hand on the same spot and watched it vanish into thin air once more. The more she disbelieved it, the further Phoebe pushed her arm clean through the invisible gap, feeling around for something in a desperate bid to keep hold of her sanity.

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><p>The next thing Mrs Sparrow knew was she had walked through a brick wall and had caught her stocking on a tall metallic gate, identical to the once she saw when she stumbled into Gary's HQ, all that time ago.<p>

The yard she was now in was dirty, piled high with cardboard boxes that had seen better days. The pollution in the east end seemed to have gotten worse since the last time she had been here, she thought as she coughed and spluttered thanks to the fog and fumes that lived in the new millennium. The noise pollution was even worse, cars constantly roared past and atrocious music blasted out from all directions. Everything felt wrong, like all this shouldn't really be happening.

She noticed the door leading inside the building opposite her was slightly ajar, so she headed for it instinctively, Phoebe began to whisper her husband's name, half hoping she would find him here.

By the door there were more boxes full of trinkets piled about as high as Phoebe herself. She yelled in frustration as she caught the corner of one box with her leg causing the tower to come crashing down, its contents full to the brim of ARP warden's helmets, sandwich tins and china tea pots fractured on the floor, she franticly gathered all the pieces together, pushing them to one side before she stepped over them and fumbled for a light switch.

Phoebe made her way into the main body of the building. The 'shop' was just as she remembered, full of knick-knacks and bric-a-brac but it clearly hadn't been used since the war ended. The amount of dust made the cockney songbird sneeze loudly, the echo ringing loudly throughout the shop.

She studied each artefact carefully, there were lots of items she recognised but many she didn't. Looking puzzled she picked up a digital watch, she couldn't understand the series of numbers below the time. Why didn't the watch have hands like the ordinary ones? Why didn't it tick? It must be some secret contraption she thought. Placing the object down she tutted in disgust as the extent of the damage to her stocking was evident in the light. As there was nobody about she might as well take it off, she thought.

As she was carefully unrolling the garment slowly down her left thigh the front door clicked, as if someone was trying to open it. Phoebe jumped fifty foot in the air. As the door slammed behind a familiar looking larger man emerged from the shaddows.

"Please, don't stop on my account" the man with the Liverpudlian accent said saucily.

"Commander Bond!" Phoebe squealed in shock, recollecting the last time she saw Gary's 'commanding officer' and how he had gone mad, giving away Britain's secrets and claiming that in the future half the Chelsea squad would be foreign.

"Sorry who are you?" He asked staring into her eyes blankly.

"Don't you remember me? I know it's been a long time" laughed Phoebe nervously as she stuffed her ruined stocking into her green woollen coat.

"Sorry I don't" Ron Wheatcroft, one time best friend to Gary Sparrow admitted bluntly.

"I'm Phoebe, Gary Sparrow's wife" she smiled sweetly whilst she slipped her black high heeled shoe back on.

Her smile quickly transformed into a frown as she watched Ron jump back looking startled, like a rabbit in the headlights.

"Don't you remember?"

"Is he here?" Ron eventually muttered.

"Who?"

"Gary, can he get back?"

"Back where? He didn't seem himself, he hasn't for a while now, so I came looking for him. You haven't seen him either?"

"Not for a long time" Ron said sadly. "How is he?"

"Alright I suppose, though I think he misses his secret work and you and Yvonne."

"Yvonne? Why has he told you about her?"

"Of course, he tells me everything. I hope." She replied muttering the last part of her sentence to herself.

"And you- you're okay with it?" Ron replied in even more shock than when he had clapped eyes on Phoebe.

"Of course I aint, but as horrible as it sounds, I'm glad it was her and not my Gary."

"I'm sorry you've lost me" a confused Ron stammered.

"Who was killed, Gary told me all about what happened to her on VE night, he was telling me the truth wasn't he?"

"Oh yes, Yvonne is long gone" he replied quickly.

"Are you not going to her memorial?"

"Pardon?

"You know, Gary mentioned to me that Yvonne's family were holding a sort of memorial for her as today would have been her birthday" explained the brunette.

"Oh yeah, that's right, I'm on my way, I thought I would just pop in here first, for old time's sake" he said, silently cursing Gary for making him lie for him even now, after all this time.

"So you've given up the secret work too then?"

"Yeah, well I dabble a bit from time to time, gives me something to do when I get fed up of printing" he said deciding he better carry on with this make-belief he had found himself slap bang in the middle of.

"Do you enjoy printing?"

"Yeah, I used to love it. It's what I did before the war, I started at 16 and eventually had my own business then of course the war came along and I lost it all."

"Who do you work for now?"

"Myself, Yvonne, bough- left me with enough money to start up again. I was very grateful to her for that, I know she saw me as a pain in the arse-"

"Well if you were always like how you was when you came up west with me, Gary and the others, I'm not surprised. How come she never left Gary with anything in her will?"

"She probably thought he had everything he needed, he had you, your son and the club. I had nothing, no job, no wife, even my only friend left me."

Phoebe went to put her arm around him, she hated seeing people upset. "Has Gary not been in touch at all then?"

Ron shook his head. "Nope but I'm sure it isn't for lack of trying" he said taking two shorts glasses from behind the counter and began pouring two generous helpings of whiskey. "Want one?"

"Thank you" she said taking the beverage. "You are more than welcome to come and stay with us sometime, I'm sure Gary will be pleased to see ya."

"Thanks, it is a very kind offer but I am trying to put all that stuff behind me and I am sure Gary is too" he said flinching as the last drop of whiskey hit the back of his throat.

"He is, but he is finding it just as hard as you, perhaps you two could help each other?" She suggested tactfully.

"I'm not sure, tell him I send him my best regards and that I miss him, won't you?"

"Of course" she nodded, "I'm sure it will mean a lot to him." Looking at her beautiful smile Ron could see why Gary feel in love with her so quickly.

"Look I don't want to be rude but I best be going and I'm the only one with a key to this place these days so I ought to lock up." He eventually said.

"Of course" Phoebe replied, setting down her glass which was almost untouched. "I'll go the way I came, you did know that the back door was open and I ought to apologise for knocking them boxes over."

"It's alright; it was nice seeing you again. You won't forget to give my regards to Garry, will you?"

"Of course I won't, likewise about seeing you again, bye." She said waving slightly as she headed for the door.

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><p>Ron stood stock still for a moment, he was completely and utterly in shock. He never thought he would have anything to do with Gary again. Did this mean that the time portal was open to all once more? Was it open to all except Gary? Would he breeze through here, any second like nothing had happened? Of course not, judging from what Phoebe had told him, he sounded as miserable as the rest of them in this century. Part of him was glad he was miserable there, he deserved to be after all the hurt and trouble he caused everyone this side of the time portal but on the other hand, he had been his best friend for years, even if he did use him for white fivers and ration books. Ron didn't like the think of Gary, over there upset. He had visions of Gary's pining for his real time having negative effects on his marriage to Phoebe and there had been too many casualties in the Gary Sparrow saga, there didn't need to be anymore.<p>

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><p>Phoebe stared at the eyesore in front of her, she knew she would have to walk right through the metallic gates but she still couldn't help think that this secretive cover up was more than what it appeared to be. Like she had done with the brick wall on the other side of Duckett's Passage she ran her hand across the gate and watched it magically disappear. Then the rest of her body followed. She was back to normality- whatever that was. At least the street looked and smelled how it should. Should she tell Gary about all this? Should she tell him about Ron? Would it help or would it make him worse? There was something else she needed to tell him, something more important but she wasn't sure how he would react to that either.<p>

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><p>Ron headed to the back of the shop, he saw Phoebe had picked up the broken fragments of 1940's memorabilia and discarded them into a cardboard box, which was nearest to the door. He went outside and checked that she had successfully gotten back to her own time before he tried his luck with the gates. Ron didn't know why he was trying, if he did get back to 1946 and came face to face with Gary he wasn't sure what he would want to say to him. He wasn't even sure if he could face seeing Gary Sparrow.<p>

His hand went through the gate alright, but not through to the past, it slipped through the metal bars with ease but that was as far as it went. Stepping back he pondered on what that meant in regards to the portal, could it only be Phoebe who could come through it now? Maybe he would find out very soon, once Phoebe gave Gary the message she had bumped into him his former best friend, Gary was bound to come to the east end and see if he could get through again.

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><p>When Phoebe Sparrow eventually got home she was greeted by her husband who had been standing anxiously by the front door waiting for her to return.<p>

"Phoebe, where have you been? I've been worried."

"I went for a walk; I thought you would still be out."

"I only went around the block, look at the state of you, what on earth happened?"

"Nothing, I'm fine" she said brushing the dust off her black skirt.

"But one of your stockings is ripped to shreds and the other is missing, Phoebe did anyone hurt you?" Gary asked, an air of worry rang high in his voice.

"No, don't be silly, I was worried about you, and I thought, what with you being upset an all, you might have been down the east end."

"Why would I be there? You know our life is here now" he said laughing nervously as he pulled her into an embrace so she wouldn't see his face as she explained.

"I know, I just thought with you being upset about Yvonne you might have got to the memorial and not been able to go in, I thought you might've needed me."

"Oh Phoebe, let's say we have a nice cup of tea and go to bed."

She nodded, should she tell him about Ron? Now would be the perfect opportunity.

"Where abouts did you end up, to get yourself in such a mess?" He asked coming back into the living quarters, kettle in hand.

"Ducketts's Passage" she replied dabbing her running nose delicately with a handkerchief. She pulled it away as she saw the panic written across her husband's face.

"W-why did you go there?" He asked trying desperately to retain his balance.

"Well as you'd been talking about Yvonne and you used to work there, I thought that's where you might have gone."

"And did you see anyone? Did you notice anything strange?" He shouted as the nerves got the better of him.

"Calm down, give me that I'll make the tea, you just sit down." She ordered taking the kettle from his tight grip and headed for the kitchen.

"But Phoebe, this is important, did you see anyone?" He called out franticly.

"I did as it happens" his wife replied as she re-emerged without the kettle.

"Well who, who did you see?"

"That unstable Commander Bond of yours, he seemed shocked to see me at first and then he seemed sad as he talked about the war, he was going to Yvonne's memorial."

Gary froze in disbelief. "Well what did he say, did he mention Yvonne? Me?"

"He said she had left him with enough money to start up his own print business, in her will and said she didn't leave you anything as you had everything you needed, where as that Ron, I know he is several sandwiches short of a picnic but he really does appear to lead a sad life."

"Did he say anything else?"

"He said to remember him to you and that he misses ya, I did say he was welcome to drop by anytime but he didn't seem too keen, reckon he wants to put the war behind him, like everyone else."

Gary starred at her as if it was she who was out of place with the time they were currently in. Did his 1940's wife really just stumble into the future, into the future Gary should be enjoying? There were so many unanswered questions. How long had the portal been reopened for? Did Phoebe get further than the shop? No she can't have if Ron was there. Good old Ron, even now despite the years of being used he was still looking out for his best pal.

"Where _exactly _did you see Ron?" Gary asked, unsure if he really wanted to know the answer to his own question.

"I don't know how but I ended up in your old secret headquarters, y'know the place what looked like a shop. Ron came in as I was assessing the damage those gates did to me stockings. He said he wanted to check in for old time's sake before he went to pay his respects to Yvonne."

"But did you see anything else?"

"Nah, he wanted to get going and I wasn't sure how I got there to tell you the truth, so thought I best go back the way I came" she explained omitting the part where to get back she had to walk through a gate that resembled one you would find at the front of a new prison. Gary would think she's gone mad, wouldn't he?

"Phoebe promise me you won't go looking for that place again?" he said locking his eyes onto hers in a silent but desperate plea.

"I promise, I didn't go looking for it, I sorta just ended up there" she said with that alluring east end charm that had made Gary fall in love with her the very first time he spoke to her in the Royal Oak.

"Good girl" he muttered, his mind was already at Duckett's Passage, he was debating whether the rest of him should follow.

Phoebe returned with a tray of tea things, which she placed on the coffee table before she sat back down on the sofa and patted at the cushion sitting next to her. "Gary there is something I've been meaning to tell you."

Gary was once again startled; he was frightened his secret of being a former time traveller, liar, one time adulterer and eventually bigamist would rear its ugly head and everyone would finally know his dirty secret.

"What is it?" He gulped joining his wife on the settee.

"I'm pregnant" she smiled. "The doctor confirmed it the other day, I would have told you sooner but you haven't been yourself so I thought I would wait until it was all official. You're not cross are ya?"

An expression of relief washed over him. "Cross? Phoebe that is fantastic news" he exclaimed in an aspirated manner.

However, his wife wasn't sure he was really as joyful about the news as he made out. "You don't sound as pleased as I thought you might" she whispered.

"Oh, Phoebe! Of course I am, I'm just a bit shocked that's all, I mean we weren't exactly trying were we?"

"No, but we did talk about thinking about a little brother or sister for Michael."

"I know, and I am delighted, really, come here." As he pulled her into a hug he smelt the sweet fragrance in her hair and smiled. He was happy about becoming a father again, he really was but once again everything changed. He knew what he should do but he was still undecided as to whether what he wanted to do and what he should do were the same thing.

Perhaps a trip to Duckett's Passage was in order? But then again what was the point in raking up the past, especially if the past is in the future. Maybe tomorrow he would more of an idea about the possibilities of time travelling again.


End file.
